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The Lebanese-American was rapidly tipped off about her arrival by associates, according to Fairfax Media. In the two days leading up to the botched abduction, a suspicious car was spotted trailing three-year-old Noah and five-year-old Lahela on their way to school.

When Ms Faulkner's hired recovery agents grabbed the kids off the street on April 7 in the Hadath district - a Hezbollah stronghold - Mr Elamine was inundated with phone calls from the tight-knit southern Beirut Shiite community.

Mr Moghabghab revealed that Mr Elamine had said $250,000 or $350,000 meant nothing to him when it came to his children - suggesting any payout would have to be higher.

The Australian's Jacquelin Magnay told 2UE radio the well-off Elamine family were likely to want a "big public apology" and "an enormous amount of compensation to repair their respectability".

Mr Elamine may have something of an axe to grind. He told The Australian he had been portrayed in a bad light by the Australian media, with A Current Affair wrongly portraying him as an Islamic State fighter when covering Ms Faulkner's story.

He told 3AW's Neil Mitchell that he would not have been shown any compassion if things were the other way around.

"If the tables were turned and I had shown up in Australia and tried to kidnap someone, I probably would have been shot and called a terrorist," he said.